


Caught and Cursed

by Unicorn (Jensee)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Rusty Quill Bang 2019, Spiders, Unrequited Crush, canon-typical creepiness, so many spiders, spoilers up to season 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2020-09-01 15:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20260237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jensee/pseuds/Unicorn
Summary: "Are you a smoker, Jon?" asks Gertrude the first time he meets her - eyeing the lighter he's been meaning to throw away - and when he says no she raises an eyebrow and dismisses him.There are spiders in the archives, webs sticking to Jon's fingers when he reaches for a book or a file. And if he was a more paranoid, a more impressionable man, he would say they follow a pattern, a scheme. He would say they follow Martin Blackwood.There are spiders in his dreams, webs sticking to Jon's fingers when he tries to escape his own mind, and always, always Martin Blackwood is there with a smile.





	1. Double Faced

The lighter stuck to his fingers when he opened his palm to try and put it out of his pocket on his first day at the Magnus Institute. It wasn't anything supernatural, not really, Jon told himself, but he stared and stared at his hand, the lighter still in it, its spider slack and unmoving despite the constant illusion of shifting legs, and finally put it back in his pocket.  
Who cared if he has a lighter at work anyway? It wasn't like he was going to try and lit any fire in the library or archives sections of the building. He hadn't used the damn thing in so long he was pretty sure there wasn't any fuel in it anymore.

He didn't even remember when and why he got it. Maybe he had never even used it. For all he knew, it had just been laying around in his flat one day and he'd pocketed it in a half-hearted attempt at cleaning.

It didn't really matter either way, and when Jon finally crossed the heavy doors of the Institute for the first time, a foreign, unidentified feeling prickling at his neck - nervousness, maybe? - he'd forgotten all about it.

Jon wakes up to a warm, unbelievably comfortable bed.

He keeps his eyes shut, breathing in the reassuring scent of his pillows. Outside of the bed, he knows, is the harsh light of morning - pure rays of sunshine ready to stab trough his pupil and right into his skull – and he wants to shelter himself from it a few minutes more.

“Hello Jon” says a voice beside him.

The tone is soft and gentle and Jon abandons his world of darkness to turn towards the man.

He looks just as comfortable as Jon’s bed, and his down-turned eyes are alight with the faint smile on his lips. He looks like Jon could curl up against his chest and stay there forever. He looks like he - amazingly - belongs in Jon’s flat, in Jon’s bed, blocking the deathly rays coming from the sun through the window.

Jon has never seen him before.

The man is gently looking at him, looking relaxed in his crisp looking shirt. Jon wonders how long he’s been there, watching him sleep. He considers the absurdity of climbing into a bed with his pants on, but that’s really none of his business.

“Should I make breakfast, Jon?”

The man’s voice is warm, but the words are slightly disjointed, like they were read from an approximative textbook where none of the letters are in the same size or font.

“Okay,” says the man, and when he stands up it seems like he’s floating up, his legs coming to rest under him rather than supporting him.

He turns, and there's something coming from his neck to the ceiling.

A thin, barely there, white thread.

“Are you a smoker, Jon?” the man says, and he has Jon’s lighter in his hand, is looking quizzically as the spider etched on it.

Jon wakes up.

It wasn't quite that Jon didn't know why he'd applied to the Magnus Institute in the first place. He knew what his interest in the place was, why he wanted to get into the place, study it, try to decipher its mystery.

He’d been there, once, lost and anxious and trying to find an explanation to what he’d seen, to what he’d been through, to something that wasn’t possible and yet _ had _ to have happened.

He hadn’t left a statement, though. Of course not. There had been forms lying around, helpful employees eager to help, with a smile and a pen at the ready, and at the sight of it all Jon had felt an almost physical sentiment of reject. The idea of sharing whatever had happened, of exposing himself to those smiles full of teeth, to those eyes hungry for his soul to be bare… Jon would have rather torn his own skin off and poured salt on the exposed flesh at this instant.

But that very feeling was why he knew there were answers to be found there. The uneasiness that came with simply walking into the building – being suddenly extremely aware of all its dark, hidden corners, and wondering what was in that darkness, feeling like whatever it was, you could never quite escape it - was the same kind of feeling he’d had in front of a door, a normal wooden door, all those years ago.  
There _ had _ to be some connection there.

And yet, Jon had never really considered actually working there.  
Discovering the truth, what had actually happened to a bored, impressionable ten years old boy had been a constant but far-away goal. Like unrooting everything and going to live in the Caribbean. Expect the sun was a smooth plank of wood and the waves were a long, impossible limb coming out of a children’s book.

Jon wanted to know the truth, yes, but he also knew there was a finality to knowledge, a threshold you could only cross one way, and maybe there had been too much similarity to an old nightmare for Jon to really consider acting on his need for answers.

And yet.

There he was.

But whatever had been his reasons, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t find them in stocks. Sadly, that had been exactly where Gertrude Robinson had stashed him.

Not even the archival stocks, no; the _ institute _’s stock. Which was to say, the place in the Magnus Institute where he had the least chance of dealing with anything even remotely interesting.

Jon guessed he should have been relieved there were no scurrying legs in here, no oppressing presence pressing down like a heavy, shadowy scarf on his shoulders, constricting around his throat. He should have been glad the place didn't induce in him the creeping terror he found in his dreams. The problem was, this place didn't _induce anything_ _else either_.

He’d tried to read some of the statements he’d been tasked with classifying and ordering, and they were all very obviously unrelated to anything even remotely outside of normal reality parameters. Most of them sounded like pranks, or drug-induced delirium, or were so mundane it didn't really matter whether or not they constituted a true encounter with… something. Some of them rang true enough when Jon read them, but they elicited in him a distinct lack of… feeling. That feeling he’d grown accustomed to – a kind a creeping crawl up his neck, like the smooth slither of a serpent ready to squeeze his throat or the delicate touch of tiny, hairy legs gently climbing up his spine…

None of them were real.

Jon knew this with the same certainty that still woke him up hearing a door gently creak open.

And he knew, he _knew_ Gertrude Robinson had done it on purpose. He knew she'd made the conscious decision to keep him at arm’s length of whatever this was, whatever _ she knew_ that he didn't. She’d looked at his lighter as he was idly playing with it, trying to assuage the nerves of being in front of a woman deeply embedded in whatever Jon was trying to discover. She’d looked and her expression had gone from a polite placidity to a masked steeliness.

“Are you a smoker, Jon?” she’d said, and Jon was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to notice the shift in her tone, the barely there edge, of _ something _, that went far beyond interviewing a new employee.

He’d said no, and they’d kept talking, but then Gertrude Robinson had tasked him with organizing _ stock _, of all things, and he knew it was connected. There had to be a reason for which Gertrude Robinson had sent him to the part of the Institute that was the least likely to give him the answers he was looking for.

He just didn’t know _ why._

There was so much Jon didn’t know.

With a sigh, he shoved a pile of documents on his assigned, horrid looking desk. For now, he just had to go through the work and hope it would shine a positive light on his resume.

There was a spider.

Jon froze, his lips curling in disgust.  
There was a spider on his desk. It sat there, its eyes trained on Jon as it moved its mandibles, watching him as if to dare to do anything about its impromptu presence on his desk.

He wanted to squash it, could imagine himself doing so, with his hand, or, preferably, with his stack of paper. A good hit and it would be paste. But he was frozen in place, his eyes caught by the spider’s, and he didn’t move an inch.

Bloody spiders.

Jon is back in front of the door.

It's not moving, or making any noises.

It's just a door.

But Jon knows what is beyond it.

There is black, spongy blood seeping from under the wood, slowly expanding into a large puddle, that soon grows big enough to start dripping down the stairs, conquering them one by one in a slow, irrepressible charge towards Jon’s feet.

Only, it isn't moving. Instead, it seems to be staying at every stage of its progression at once. All at once a small puddle and a gaping ocean flickering in Jon’s mind, trying to fit all its form in his brain. Looking at it hurts, and makes Jon feel as tough the ground under his feet is rolling in tandem with the heaves of his stomach.

He looks back at the door.

It's just a door.

It's close. Closer. Jon’s ear is glued to it, and he can hear the sound of thousands of millions of tiny, scurrying legs shifting and busying themselves as if they're trying to create the thickest web to ever exist.

Something is crawling up Jon’s legs, shifting and brushing him as it pinches his flesh to climb higher, higher… And suddenly he realizes the sound isn't only coming from the door.

A long furry limb reaches around him to tap lightly in the door.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Jon tries to scream but no sound comes out of his mouth.

It's full of spiders.

Jon met his colleagues in a slow trickle.

Sasha, from the Artefact storage, had introduced herself the first day, a perfunctory salute and presentation that perfectly suited her and Jon’s preference. Immediately, Jon had appreciated her direct way of speaking, and her thorough mind. More than once, Jon had found himself seeking her company at lunch if only to avoid having to share it with Tim, from the front desk.

It wasn’t that Tim was stupid, or unfriendly. If anything, he was _ too _ friendly for Jon’s taste. And even though he was almost sure the flirting and the winking was supposed to be a shared joke, he couldn’t feel comfortable at the constant jokes and barely there innuendos the man was constantly making. It was made all the more infuriating with the fact that Jon had surprised the man with very advanced book on architecture and urbanism more than once, and thinking that he preferred to make references to how much of a good lay he was instead of talking about a subject he had obvious interest in annoyed Jon more than was polite to express.

Apart from them both, Jon had yet to find anyone seeking his company. That was fine by him, as he was far from enjoying having to play the social butterfly, but even he could admit it was a bit weird. It didn’t seem to be outright dislike, which he was used to, but more like he made his fellow institute employees uneasy. Whenever he talked to anyone - most of the time to deal with some work issue - they barely looked in the eyes and fled as soon as they were done shoving whatever it was he needed to get in his hands.

It seemed as though they all knew something about him they didn’t want to admit to. Even Michael Shelley, Gertrude Robinson’s closest assistant, that Jon had tried to approach in a last ditch attempt at making a good impression on the Archivist, had gently smiled and pretended to be busy with something else.

It was clear, however, that Michael was involved in whatever it was Gertrude Robinson was at the center of. In the rare instance that Jon wasn’t swamped by his tasks (that seemed more and more like busy work designated to keep him out of the way), he had slinked to the part of the Institute receiving the public and taking statements. Sometimes, even before someone had taken the form to relate their story, Michael would appear, with a gentle smile and a guiding hand, and direct them towards the Archivist’s office.

All of those specific visitors were different, but they did have in common the same… aura of anticipation around them, as if they knew something was coming and couldn’t do anything but wait for it to catch up with them. The feeling was unsettling, especially in contrast with how gently Michael led them into the Archives, the dark of the building engulfing them like a hungry wolf.

Every time that Jon assisted to that scene close enough that Michael spotted him, he received a dark glance that had nothing to do with the bloke’s usual gentleness, and quickly retreated in his corner of the Institute.

Something was wrong with this place, and he needed to figure it out.

There was a knock to Jon’s office door, and he detached himself from his hazy thoughts, annoyed to be once again surprised out of zoning out during his work. It was a boring job, of course, but Jon was supposed to at least pretend he was doing it well if he wanted to get any closer to what really interested him.

“Come in.”

“Um, Hello, Mr Sims?” A man poked his head out of the door and Jon froze, struck in place by an immediate recognition.

“I’m Martin Blackwood, the new archival assistant. Nice... to meet you?”

Jon blinked, then forced a smile, knowing exactly how unconvincing it was.

The man from his dream smiled back.

Jon opens the door before the knock can resonate in his flat, but he hears it anyway: the unhurried, lazy knuckles tapping a sinister rhythm in his head.

Martin Blackwood smiles, over the bouquet of flowers he’s handing him. It’s a beautiful smile, soft and pale like a faded photograph.

Jon feels like he’s missing something. He tries to remember where he is but the space behind Martin is simply a blank black nothingness.

The flowers in his hands look beautiful, and Jon thinks briefly of sunflowers, but it doesn’t seem to be quite like that. He looks again and the flowers are now just dark shapes, eights thin legs wrapped around a burnt piece of wood, forming black, hairy buds.

“Do you like them?” Martin asks.

The spiders slowly begin unfurling, their legs making soft clicking noises as they unwrap themselves from their perch, and one by one, fall against Jon’s chest.

“I picked them for you” says Martin’s voice far above, but Jon’s vision is darkening and he can barely hear it.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey Jon, how are you? Do you want some tea?”

Jon threw a glance Martin’s way, the man was standing in the doorway of his small office and balancing a tray between his hands.

Like he had almost everyday since he’d began working at the institute.

Jon shrugged, and Martin let himself in with a smile, like he always did.

Jon probably should have kicked him out at this point, ask the man to leave him alone and to stop imposing his presence on him while he worked. For once, he would even have a point outside of his well-known grumpiness.

He never did, though.

The thing was, had Jon been anywhere else, he probably would have liked Martin. The man was nice, unobtrusive, and appreciated the comfort of a good cup of tea at any time of day.

Overall, Martin’s regular visit in his tiny office had been a nice short break in Jon’s work, and Martin usually didn’t impose his presence on Jon too long once their cups were empty.

Had they met in any other circumstances, Jon would have leaned into their easy friendship, maybe would have wondered what Martin’s lips tasted like wrapped around his own rather than white porcelain.

As it was, Jon had a very clear idea of what those lips felt like against his own.

“I had to work with Gertrude this morning,” confided Martin quietly as he put a small dose of sugar in his cup. “she kept looking at me like I was about to break something.”

“You work with the Archivist?” Jon blinked, torn out of his thoughts.

Martin shrugged, looking put upon.

“Sometimes. It’s not all that great. She mainly needs me to call people that never answer the phone, and she’s not… she’s pretty intimidating, you know?”

Martin made a face and Jon was back to contemplating him to try and decipher what it was that kept telling him there was something slightly off with Martin.

Jon had thought he’d find answers working at the Magnus Institute, but he’d found only more questions, and Martin was the main one.

He kept seeing him, both in his dreams and outside of them, and no matter how much Jon looked at them, they both seemed wrong in different way. But he could never put his finger on it.

Martin coughed, and once again Jon was torn away from his musing. He was honestly surprised Martin – the real one, not the dream one – spent so much time with him when Jon was so distracted all the time.

“What about you, you’ve never worked with her?”

Jon shrugged, trying to keep his bitter expression at bay.

“I’m pretty sure she would lock me here ad vitam aeternam if she could.”

“What? Why?”

Martin looked genuinely surprised. Maybe it was because he’d been there for even shorter a time than Jon, but he seemed to be entirely oblivious to whatever everyone was seeing in him.

He shrugged.

“I don’t know, maybe-“

There was something on Martin’s shirt.

Just a peck, something small and dark.

Something with legs and fuzzy hair.

“You have something on....” said Jon feebly, feeling as though the words trickled out of his mouth without any resistance whatsoever. Like he couldn’t have swallowed them if he’d had the mind to.

“What? Oh! Hey there.”

The spider climbed on the offered hand and _ looked _ directly towards Jon. He shivered uncontrollably, and the movement caught Martin’s attention once again. If he saw the expression of disgust Jon was sure he was wearing, he made no comment of it.

“Maybe I can help with that? Put in a good word for you, or something.”

“I- what?”

Martin smiled, and Jon’s confusion turned to uneasiness. The spider, now in Martin’s hand, was looking at him just like the man holding it was, and somehow, right then, Martin’s eyes seemed as soulless as the arachnid’s.

“Don’t get me wrong, I barely pass her radar, but it’s obvious she misjudged you. We just need to get her to give you a chance, right?”

Jon nodded, but Martin’s words seemed far away, and looking at him, he felt none of the warmth he’d started associating with the man.

Then, Martin came back to the subject of his morning misadventure, and the wire keeping Jon’s muscle tight and tense seemed to snap.

There was nothing amiss with the man in front of him, the oppressive blandness dead and gone like a wave returning to the ocean. Martin chatted away, sending a jovial goodbye to Jon and heading out of his office to go free the spider.

Jon could have sworn the pattern of his pullover was organized like a web as the door closed on him.

* * *

He’s walking the corridors of the institute. They’re dark, and they seem to go on forever. Around him, the shelves loom, dark and oppressive, heavy with the promise of knowledge. A knowledge he can almost hear the murmur off, a near silent sound that splits his ears. He wants to stop, to fall to his knees and cover his ears, and every second it feels like he’ll break and do just that, but he keeps walking, and the feeling only intensifies, until he is only ears that break under a silent scream and legs that walk in a tireless rhythm.

There’s a door, and beyond the door there’s a man, hunched over some paper. He tries to talk to him but his mouth stays resolutely closed, and the man doesn’t look up. He’s frozen in place, watching as the man reads and reads and reads, the darkness slowly engulfing him until only the shiny tethers that rely him to all corners of the room are visible. His eyes follow the threads, clinging around the room, on shelves and books and paper. Some of them are more vibrant than others, and as he follows their paths, he realizes they all lead to a single point.

He watches as the thread shine wetly where they connect to his chest, marred with the blood that slowly trickles out of his torso. He can hear the beating of his own heart clearly, as if it’s suddenly filling the whole room. The threads follow the movement, gently swaying back and forth, back and forth.

Jon looks up, and he is looking this time.

Right back at himself.

* * *

After that first meeting, Jon is torn between avoiding Martin at all costs, and keeping an eye on him in case the man is actually some kind of supernatural malevolent being. And while Martin does not seem to be readying himself to take over the earth or anything similar, he seems to _always_ _be_ _surrounded_ by _spiders_.

It’s not entirely overt, and Jon is sure he wouldn’t notice if he wasn’t looking so carefully, but where Martin goes, so do the spiders. Every time Jon finds himself watching him, he can also spot a web in a corner of the shelves or slowly climbing some of the books, making its crawling way into the harbingers of knowledge. Sometimes, Jon even catches Martin talking to some of the spiders, with a soothing, gentle voice, and at some point, when he didn’t manage to escape a lunch with both Martin and Tim, the man admitted to having kept pet spiders in his home for quite a long time.

Now, Jon is conscious that his suspicions are quite far-fetched, especially since Martin might honestly be the nicest person he’s met in a long time. He really doesn’t seem the sort to plan machiavellians schemes, and if Jon was to believe the way he very unsubtly tries to avoid Elias, their manager, whenever he comes to check up on their work, he isn’t exactly a model for quiet creeping either. In fact, the more Jon observes the man, the more he is convinced Martin is mostly a sweet guy with no clue of how he ended up where he is. And if he was any other place, Jon would be tempted to believe it.

But the institute is far from being a normal place, and the chilling feeling Jon gets whenever Gertrude comes up to request a specific files, or ask to see a visitor before they can even come up to the welcoming desk, is a constant reminder that in here, things are not as they seem. Martin isn’t, and the random appearances of spiders aren’t. Were Jon in any other kind of library, he would attribute their presence to the fact that it’s a dark and unfrequented place, but in here, the very air feels like it’s heavier, unfriendly, and Jon, even in his decidedly very mundane part of the Institute, constantly feels watched. It’s not hard, from here, to be suspicious of a thousand of eight legged cluster of eyes, and of a sweet man who too often seems to have silky thread hanging from his fingertips.

Jon watches.

That’s all he can ever do.

* * *

“Jon?” says someone behind him, and he turns around.

Elias is a tall man, with deep-seated, pale eye that seem to sink into his flesh, carving his cheekbones inwards to leave them as much space as possible. It leaves him with a constant air of haughty openness that also reverberates in his voice. It would be infuriating if Jon had to spend with him more than the few minutes each weeks.

“Oh. Elias. I didn’t see you there.”

The man gives him a half-smile, and Jon wonders if he said something funny. Elias doesn’t share Gertrude Robinson’s apparent dislike of Jon but he seems to be just as cognizant of whatever she sees in him that repulses her. If Jon wasn’t still doubtful it isn’t his own mind playing tricks on him he would probably try and call him out on it, demand he be given some explanations.  
But he does need the job, after all, and there is no reason to think Elias would be willing to tell him anything anyway.

“That’s fine. I have a few statements that I can’t find into the filing system.” He waves the wad of paper in his hand. “Would you care to read and categorize them? I don’t think they fit into Gertrude’s research, and knowing her, she would be unwilling to properly file them.”

“Oh. Alright. No problem.”

There’s something weird about the situation. Like Jon should maybe protest, like it’s not quite the job he is being employed for, but Elias has a glint in his eye that seem to promise… _something_. Maybe even something Jon is looking for. Which would be a feat, considering Jon is not a lot of thing but he does have enough self-awareness to admit he _doesn’t_ know what he’s looking for.

The paper feels weird in his hand, its grain oddly textured where it touched his fingers.

Jon goes back to his desk and his throat is dry. He tells himself this is work and ignores the strange twinge of exalted guilt he feels upon glancing down at the paper.

The words stand out on the page, the cursive writing oddly clear and regular, inviting.

Jon begins to read.

* * *

He’s sleeping, but his eyes are open, and thus, they can’t miss the spectacle before his eyes.

He’s pinned down, his arms and legs kept apart, pinned to the wall like a butterfly in a gallery.

The humans in front of him are moving on with their lives. Sometimes their eyes glaze over him but they don’t seem to seem him, to notice his eyes as he follows their movements with them.

He watches as they become warier, as they stagger into static movements, their eyes looking and searching for him, never quite landing on his form, never quite finding him here. They know he is there, but they are blind to his form, to the edges of his being.  
Maybe he doesn’t have any.

One by one, the humans’ movements stagger to a stop, and they disappear one by one.

He doesn’t move.

He looks and looks and looks and waits.

* * *

Elias keeps giving him statements. _Real_ statements, whatever that means. Jon know what they are because reading them makes him feels that deep seated fear in the pit of his stomach and because it gives him a migraine like no other, as if his eyes are trying to pop out of his skull.

He tries to act as normal as he can, though, to not arise any suspicion among his colleagues. He doesn’t question Elias, doesn’t mention the statement, despite the fact that he is sure the man knows what he has been handling Jon. And he knows they don’t belong in his perfectly mundane, insignificant part of the institute.

He has thought about bringing them back to the Archivist, of course, to Gertrude Robinson’s desk, but he suspects it would only cause the old woman to be even more wary of him. And if he lets himself think too much, he is even tempted to consider that maybe he shouldn’t trust her nearly as much as he does. Maybe there’s a specific reason Elias has brought _him_ statements he shouldn’t be reading. Maybe Elias is not to be trusted either. Jon can hardly think about what is the right thing to do at the moment.

“Hey Jon, is everything alright?”

Jon blinks up to see Martin, his shy smile firmly in place and two cups of tea in his hands.

“Ah. Yes.”

Is the tea for him? Jon can’t really refuse, that wouldn’t be polite and would probably appear suspicious, but he really isn’t in the mood to drink tea.

He wants to go back to the statement, to read them again, to figure them out…

“You haven’t left your desk since you went in, so I figured I’d force you to take a little break.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

He chances a look towards the clock near the door, and it’s nearly three pm. Has he really not moved since this morning? And he’s made so little progress… None, really, because he’s pretty sure those statement don’t count as work and he certainly hasn’t done any filing today.

“What are you working on?” Martin asks, full of quiet cheer. His eyes are fixated on Jon’s desk and he has the irrational desire to hide the statement from him. It’s not like Martin would spy on him – probably – but he feels like he shouldn’t see them.

They’re _his_.

“Oh. Just some files Elias asked me to organize.”

That seems to surprise Martin, and he arches an eyebrow.

“Oh. Elias.”

He pauses and sips on his tea. Jon watches on, now intrigued at Martin’s sudden change in behavior.

“He’s a bit strange, isn’t he?” Martin catches the look Jon is sending him and flushes “Not that- I mean- It’s fine! It’s just, well… I don’t know what his job is, you know? He’s always talking about handling the team and all but when I see him he’s always just working with statements… and that’s Gertrude’s job, right?”

Jon blinks, a bit surprised. That’s actually a pretty good remark, close enough to what Jon himself had noticed about the man. Elias doesn’t seem to be working with Gertrude Robinson as much as working against her, and that _is_ a bit strange, isn’t it?

“I mean I guess I’m just a bit scared of him?” Martin chuckles depreciatively.

“Really?” Jon is surprised into interrupting his colleagues babbling.

Martin jumps.

“Well yeah, I mean, it’s not- you know- it’s just the way he looks like at you. Like he- he- I don’t know. I mean, do you… do you know what I mean?”

Jon thinks about Elias’s clear eyes, the intensity with which he looks at Jon, as if he knows… something, some kind of joke Jon isn’t in yet.

“I guess I do. I would say he isn’t so bad, though.”

Jon certainly had worst bosses.

“What? Of course not. I wasn’t- It’s just, this place is just a bit weird, you know?”

Jon thinks about the creeping corners, the sensation he’s had that someone, _something _is watching him, that some of his colleagues somehow _know_ something about him he has a hard time parsing himself.

“Yes. I know.”

“Oh, hey there.”

Jon looks up to see Martin smiling down. It’s a nice smile, small and soft, and Jon’s mind supply the image of this mouth smiling down upon him in the morning, infusing his being with warmth when he tries to convince himself to get up.

And then he blinks, and Martin is holding out his hand out to a spider.

Jon recoils, feeling bile gathering at the hollow of his throat.

Martin only smiles, and says something about releasing the crawler outside the institute. Jon’s ears are full of cotton. He nods.

* * *

Martin’s lips are soft and supple, brushing against Jon’s like live silk. He lets out a quiet, breathy moan when Jon experiments and lets his teeth brush against the man’s skin. It feels good, almost surprisingly so, and Jon’s eyes are closed so he can fully savor the moment.

Martin lets out another soft noise, mellow, soft and happy, and now more than ever Jon wants to burrow deeper into him, into this moment. He cups Martin’s face, to feel him even more, trying to get as much of their skin touching as he can.

Something feels wrong. Jon tries to ignore the feeling tugging at the back of his neck to smother himself in soft lips, in soft sounds, in soft warmth. But the feeling persists, and he can’t properly touch the face under his fingers: they seem to be the wrong shape, the wrong size, or maybe there is something wrong with Martin’s face?

Jon keeps kissing him. He wants to stop and investigate, but Martin’s lips are so soft, so nice under his, and the thought keeps escaping him, the pleasurable fog over his mind letting the rest of his worries fall away.

He opens his eyes.

Martin is upside down, his eyes closed and his skin pale.

Too pale.

He looks dead.

Jon recoils and the spit between Martin and him isn’t spit at all, it’s a fine thread of white that stretch from one set of lips to another, shining softly in the white background of Jon’s consciousness.

It’s silk.

Spider silk.

Martin is covered head to toe in it, engulfed in a white cocoon. And around his head are two furry, black limbs, much too large to be those of a normal spider.

Martin isn’t upside down at all.

Jon is.


End file.
